


Five Hundred Piece Jigsaw Love

by orphan_account



Series: More Beautiful for Having Been Broken [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Polyamory, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's Maggie's turn for an away weekend, and Alex and Astra's first weekend alone together.  They still have a lot to work through.





	1. Chapter 1

The three of them, since Alex’s meditation retreat, had agreed that they needed to have individual couple weekends from time to time, and Maggie figured it was her turn to fuck off and go have fun by herself.  She chose a weekend in San Diego.  She had a couple of cousins there, a friend from the academy, and anyway, she said, she wanted to see the zoo.  She warned Alex and Astra that their facebook feeds would be overrun by selfies with the lemurs.

It was obscenely early for a Saturday morning.  The light had not even warmed to that buttery sunrise color yet.  Even Astra was still asleep.  Alex opened her eyes and gave Maggie a long, bleary look.   _Yep_ , she thought.   _Still gorgeous._  She reached up with a lazy arm and grabbed the hem of Maggie’s sweater, and pulled her down for a slow, soft morning kiss.  They broke after a long moment, and Maggie glanced over Alex’s shoulder at Astra, who slumbered peacefully next to Alex.  “I hate to wake her,” she murmured.

“I do not really sleep,” Astra reminded her, without opening her eyes.

“Yeah, but you look like you do,” Maggie retorted.

Astra opened her eyes, then, and propped herself up on one elbow and kissed Maggie goodbye over Alex’s shoulder.  “Enjoy your trip,” she said, and then kissed her once more, quickly, as she was pulling away.

Alex couldn’t deny that things had seemed stronger between the three of them since she’d gone away to a meditation retreat a few weeks ago.  It had given Astra and Maggie the opportunity to strengthen their bond individually, and thus lay to rest many of the fears and doubts that lingered between them and dogged the relationship that the three of them now shared.  She wondered though, what would come of her weekend with Astra.  As she watched Maggie walk away, then heard her footsteps disappear out the apartment door, and then the door slam, she felt a small wave of anxiety.  

It was already strange without Maggie.

They got up and stretched.  Alex meditated on the deck for a bit, let herself and her senses be filled by the world, and then they went for a run in the park nearby.  Astra never got winded, which was a little annoying, but the fresh morning air and the chatter of the birds and the yapping of the dogs at the dog run delighted them both, and they paused for several minutes to watch a very excited bichon run circles around a pensive-looking corgi who didn’t seem to want to play.

“Which one’s you, and which one’s me?” Alex joked.

“Sometimes I am the larger one,” she observed, looking at the corgi’s mournful face.

Then the bichon, who was smaller and more energetic, attempted to mount the corgi, despite them both being boys.  Alex had to admire the little bichon’s energy and persistence when it came that.

“But then sometimes, I am the smaller one,” Astra added, with that lilt of amusement in her voice.

Alex laughed.  “You’re the smaller one a lot.”

It was true.  They both wanted a lot of sex, because both of them had discovered it rather late in life and were rather like a couple of horny teenagers making up for lost time.  But Astra, in Alex’s estimation, burned just a little bit hotter.  Alex would often wake in the morning, already halfway to orgasm, with Astra’s hand in her pajama bottoms and her inhumanly warm body pressed against her back.

Not that she minded.

  


************************

  


Astra had always known what felt good to Alex.  Even in those dark days, when what they were doing was a terrible secret.  Even when Alex could hardly stand to look herself in the mirror after she’d been with Astra.  Astra’s fingers knew where to go, how deep to push, her mouth knew how hard to kiss her to make her body light up like Christmas.

Maybe it was just plain old sexual chemistry.  After all, she'd never had that before, and neither had Astra.  But even then, it had had a crushing inevitability to it.  Against rationality, everything in her had wanted Astra.  

“Do you really think it’s like the legend?” she asked as they were walking home at a more leisurely pace.

Astra looked quizzical.

“I mean,” Alex continued, hesitant, “us.  The warrior souls.  Do you think that’s what we are to each other?”

“How could it be otherwise?” Astra replied.  “You yourself could not explain what was happening between us.”

Alex sighed.  “Yeah.  But you know me, Astra.  I’m a realist.  And a scientist.”

“But science is also a gift of the divine,” her lover protested.  

The corner of Alex’s mouth lifted and she tangled her fingers in Astra’s as they walked.  “Oh, yeah?”

Astra nodded.  “It is a divine gift, to be able to understand and give context to the workings of the universe.  To manipulate them.  It surprises me that it needs to be said.”

Science as devotion.  Alex didn’t always understand Astra completely, but there was something beautiful about that.  She squeezed her hand.  “Okay.  Wanna science today?”

“If that is what you would like.”

“Okay.  Let’s go home and have some breakfast first.”  Alex wondered if she would ever reconcile this curious, flexible Astra with the fierce one whom she met, whom she fought, whom she had, against all fibers of her being, killed in battle.  Part of her hoped not.  Part of her wanted to forget that there was a time when they were enemies, when what they had was a secret shame.  Part of her wanted to just leave all the wounds they gave each other behind and make believe that those were part of some other life that belonged to other people.  Astra didn’t remember everything, after all.  Coming back from the dead had left some holes.

But, Alex thought, with a kind of resignation, Astra had remembered _her_.

The traffic breathed past them for a few minutes as they walked, and finally Astra ventured, “You seem troubled, brave one.”

Alex winced at the old nickname.  It had made her feel things, back then, made her stomach feel light and her heart pound as if it was trying to run out of her chest.  “I’m… I’m not brave,” she sighed after a moment.  “Or at least, I wasn’t, not before.”

“You have always been brave,” Astra protested.  But she knew what Alex meant.  

What had started as a pleasant, easy Saturday was turning somber despite her best efforts.  “No, Astra.  I wasn’t.  Not where you were concerned.  I was never brave for you.”  She looked down at their hands, swinging between them as they walked.  “At least, not until you… you came back.”

Astra looked far down the street.  Alex wondered idly how far away she was looking.  She wondered if she could see out to the water at this distance.  The ocean was just under three miles away from the park.  “We chose from the choices we had, then, Alexandra.”  

“I guess.”  


 

******************

  


The first time she and Astra had fought, back in those days before, Astra had gotten her down, and Alex thought she was finished when Astra came closer, and crouched down in front of her.  She was smiling in a way that made Alex feel like she was something to eat, and she thought for sure she was a goner.  And then Astra had touched her cheek, stroked it so gently, remarked on her bravery.  It was easily the strangest thing Alex could ever remember in her life.

But something twitched inside her when it happened.  She could feel the softness, the warmth of Astra’s fingers against her cheek for days afterwards.  She sure didn’t feel brave.  She just kept seeing Astra’s frightening grace, the muscles of her shoulders evident even through her snug, thick, dark clothing.  She kept seeing that fierce light in Astra’s eyes, the hungry way Astra looked at her.

She remembered the day Kara dragged Astra into the DEO, unconscious, like a sack of potatoes behind her on the floor.  She couldn’t stop feeling shocked.  She remembered the way Astra sat up in her Kryptonite-infused prison cell to look at her, the way her blue eyes, different than Kara’s, more like the oceans, settled on her face.  How, even staring at her through weariness and pain, she was able to remember who Alex was.  “You defeated my Hellgramite. I like you,” she had sighed.

Alex had said a lot of tough, angry things that she didn’t remember later, threatened to open up Astra’s cell and beat the information she wanted out of her.  She’d wondered how it would go between them now that they were more evenly matched, thanks to the Kryptonite lights.  Hell, she’d even lower them a little, she thought.  Where was the fun in fighting a sick opponent?  She just wanted her a little less powerful.  Alex bet herself that without those Kryptonian powers, she could definitely take Astra.  

She wanted to take Astra.  She was a little unnerved at how badly.

Four times in the course of Asta’s imprisonment at the DEO, Alex went to her cell.  The first time was threats.  The second time was bargaining.  She could see this woman was a general for a reason.  

“You are a formidable enemy,” Astra had commented.  “You would make a valuable ally.”

Alex shook her head.  “No deal.  That’s not how we work, here.  Tell me your plan.”

Astra chuckled.  

Alex leaned forward, placing a palm against the glass.  “C’mon, just give me a hint.  We can make it a game.  Maybe I’ll guess and you can tell me if I’m right or wrong?”

Astra looked amused.  Her eyes, which had been foggy and exhausted when she’d first arrived, seemed to light up with the idea of challenge, in any form.  “A game.  Agent Alexandra Danvers, you are at a distinct advantage.”

“Don’t see how.  You have all the information. And I have nothing you want.”

“Almost nothing,” Astra answered with a smirk.   _She means Kara,_ Alex thought.

A thick, tense silence followed, in which Alex felt she had stepped in something but wasn’t sure what.  She looked at Astra, her magnificent physicality, in that small, cramped cell, and it felt a little wrong to her.  Alex felt the way she did when she looked at lions in the zoo.  No matter how big or how nice their enclosures were, it somehow never seemed right.  “Look, do you have a favorite food?  I can probably get you a little something to eat, something you like.”

Astra was so proud. Too proud.  “I require nothing.”

That fucking Kryptonian arrogance.  She’d rather die on a hunger strike.

“...But, thank you.”

It was small, but Alex remembered it even now as the moment things started to open up between them.  A small show of honor from Alex, a small display of courtesy and appreciation in return.  

  


************

  


Astra had been a poet, Alex remembered.  Maggie had learned that during her time picking Alura’s AI over for any information that might help her better understand who Astra was.  A warrior poet, Alex thought.  The AI didn’t have any of Astra’s poetry to share and the few times Alex had asked, Astra had been reticent.  Alex vaguely wished that just a little of that old arrogance would come back.  She wanted her to be as proud as Alex knew she deserved to be.

“Why won’t you show us any of your poetry?” she asked over pizza omelets.  Pizza omelets were a Maggie invention and she’d taught them to Astra, who made them flawlessly from the instructions she’d memorized.  They were omelets with tomato sauce and mozzarella inside, and sometimes a little bacon or ham if they had it.  

They’d been eating quietly, enjoying the cool morning air through the screens and fiddling with their newspapers and crossword puzzles (Astra insisted that she’d have liked them in her native language but that her mind struggled to process this in English).  Astra looked up, a bit startled, as though she’d been caught doing something wrong.

“We’ve asked,” Alex pressed.  “But you’ve never wanted to.  Why is that?”

Astra bit her lip.  “I cannot remember the things I wrote before.”   _Before you died,_ Alex thought, but didn’t say it.  Her voice hung at the end of the sentence in a way that sounded as if there might be more.

“And?”

“And much of it would be difficult to translate because you do not have the words I need in your language.”

“And?”

“And much of what I have written since I came back has been complex and strange.  I do not think it would bring you enjoyment to hear it.”

Alex shuffled her paper.  (She liked the paper on the weekends.  Compared to reading the news on her tablet, it was big and old fashioned and luxurious, and Astra would frown at her because of “the trees, Alexandra!” but they negotiated a truce on this, and this alone.)   

“Well, why don’t you let me decide that?”

Astra smiled, and she seemed sad and hesitant.  “When I am ready,” she promised.  “Before the weekend is done.  But not now.”

Alex nodded.  “OK, that’s fair.”

Astra tugged at her hand across the table.  “But come here, and I will tell you a story.”

Alex gave her a puzzled smile, but got up and slid around the table to stand in front of Astra.  Astra tugged her hand again, and Alex settled into her lap, straddling her in the chair so she could face her.  “Good?”

“Good.”  She smiled, and she slipped her arms around Alex’s waist, laid an absent kiss at the base of her throat, and began to speak.  “When I was young,” she said, “I had read the epic poems.  Everyone had, of course.  The story of the passion of Kel-Lo and Rana was so beautifully written, and so rich with our people’s history from millennia past.  But we read them as quaint.  The very word for what they shared, in Kryptonese, was considered archaic and was not used in normal conversation.  Much, I think, as some of your poets’ words.”

Alex nodded. She understood.  A lot of Shakespeare was like that.  She could more or less figure out what a Shakespearean sonnet or soliloquy was getting at, but she’d hardly be caught marching around saying things like, “Fie!” and “Forsooth!”    

Astra continued.  “We translate it as love, but… it is different.  It was a difficult thing for me to absorb when I was learning your language, that the bonds of affection between family members are love, but the bonds of friendship are also love, and the benevolence of a god is also love.  Kryptonese had entirely different words for all of these things.”

Alex smiled.  Human languages at least had some universal concept of love.  Most of Earth’s languages had a word for it.

“It becomes more confusing still,” Astra continued, “when one hears you humans say things like, ‘I love pizza’ and ‘I love ice cream.’”

Alex laughed.  “You don’t understand the emotional connection we have with food?”

Astra drew her closer and kissed her shoulder.  “Ah, but I do!  I am endlessly amazed at what your people do with food.  How different the flavors are from one country to another.  When I arrived here, I spent my first ten years living on the rations contained within Fort Rozz.  I had forgotten what real food, good food, tasted like.  To hear someone talk of loving a food … was confusing.”

Alex nodded.  She could imagine having a difficult time sorting through all of that.  

“And then I tasted chicken noodle soup.”

Alex’s mouth dropped open.  

“That was my first taste of your food.”

Alex’s heart ached.  

“And I understood how someone could love food, then.  I understood how feeling joy at tasting something could be great enough that it could stand, in one’s mind and heart, beside the joy of being in the presence of those dear to you, or of feeling the blessing of one’s god.  I understood how all of those things were kinds of loving.”

Alex stroked Astra’s hair, running her fingers through its dark silk.  “Yeah?”

Astra nodded.  “Yes.”  She kissed Alex then, pulling her down to guide their mouths together, soft and quiet.  “And I feel such joy at tasting you, Alexandra.  I always have.”

  
  


***********************

  


The third time Alex came to Astra’s cell was after General Lane had tortured her with injections of liquid Kryptonite.  Of the many horrors Alex had faced, and would face, in her life, that one remained seared most painful in her memory.  It remained a thought that most times, could not bear to even be touched.  She still bore the weight of having killed Astra, but Astra was alive now, and forgave her for it.  Things happened in the heat of battle and Astra had been on the wrong side of the war.  

No, the torture was worse.  Alex knew, rationally, that she could not have single handedly stopped General Lane and his men.  There were too many of them and they were too heavily armed.  But she still hated herself for pulling away from the situation, for dragging Kara out of the room, for closing the door to Astra’s screams of agony and closing her ears Kara’s grief-stricken weeping.  Those would ever linger under skin.

Alex would do her weeping later, into a bottle, when no-one else was around.  She wasn’t even sure why.  She was had seen torture before, in limited circumstances.  But this felt wrong.  Astra was dangerous, yes, but even then, Alex could see a tiny crack in the stone face.  She had felt sure that there were better ways to get her to talk.  After all, she had something Astra wanted.  She had Kara.  Whatever was wrong with her, Alex thought, Astra clearly loved Kara.  They had that much in common.

So she went back the next day.  She walked in, armed to the teeth, wearing her blacks, with a small, white paper bag in her hands.  Astra was limp on the floor of the cell, barely conscious.  Alex cursed herself under her breath, and opened the cell door.  “If you pull anything, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life,” she told her.

But Astra was clearly not going anywhere.  It felt stupid to even say.  Astra lifted her head and her eyes focused on Alex and she seemed gratified to see her.  “Hello, brave one.”  Alex couldn’t tell if there was sarcasm in her voice.  She was struck by how the light filtered into Astra’s irises, throwing into relief their strands of dark and light blue.  

“Hello, General.”  Her voice was quiet.  Alex knelt down on the floor.  She lifted Astra’s head and shoulders until she was partially upright, leaning back against her.  She barely had any strength of her own.  

And it was the first time Alex heard Astra whisper, “I see you.”

She furrowed her brow and chalked it up to Astra being delirious and still recovering from her torture.  “Yeah, I see you too, General,” she’d said, only half absorbing that Astra looked pleased when she said this.  She reached into the bag next to her.  “I’ve brought you something.”

“A gift?”

“Sort of.”  She pulled out a takeaway container, still warm, and a plastic spoon.  “This is Yitzy’s chicken noodle soup.  It’s the best in National City.”

“I told you I do not…”  Astra gasped a little and tried again.  “....require any…”

Alex stopped her.  “They tortured you.  You need to replenish yourself.  You don’t have any powers down here.  Don’t give me a goddamn hard time, alright?”

Astra relented.  She had little choice.  

Alex opened the container and the steam and the smell of the soup filled the small plexiglass cell.  Supporting Astra with one arm, she spooned some of the soup, with the tender, wide-cut noodles into Astra’s mouth.  Astra’s eyes closed.  She didn’t say anything for a long while.  “What… what did you call this?”

“Chicken noodle soup,” Alex repeated, and spooned a little more into her mouth.  “It’s food, but it’s almost like medicine too.  Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“Doctor.  Warrior.  Spy.  You are a very interesting human.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Alex answered, trying to be curt.  Trying not to make too much out of the fact that she was crouched on the floor of a DEO containment cell, cradling Astra’s head in her lap and feeding her chicken soup.  “It’s got vitamin C, antioxidants, electrolytes... fats, salts, water, carbohydrates… it should make you feel a little better and it won’t be too hard on your stomach.  You’re probably still a little queasy thanks to those injections.”

Quiet fell for a few more minutes between them.  Astra ate a few more spoonfuls of soup.  “It is… I … it is very good.  Thank you.”

Alex didn’t answer right away, and kept feeding her.  “They shouldn’t have done that to you.  I don’t trust you, but that wasn’t right.”

Astra sighed.  “It is war.  We all do what we must.”

  
  


************************

  
  


Alex pressed Astra’s head against her chest and they held each other in the chair.  

“I never… it never occurred to me that that could have meant anything to you,” she whispered.  “It was such a small thing.  But it was all I could give you.”

“You gave me more than you understood.”

Alex began to cry, quietly, on Astra’s shoulder.  “Tasting you gives me joy, too,” she whispered.  

“I think there is much we still need to understand about each other, and about what happened before,” Astra whispered back.

“Yeah.”  They stayed that way for a long time, silent.  

“Do you want to go back to bed for a while?” Astra proposed, her voice soft in Alex’s ear.

“Yeah.”

She felt Astra’s arms grip her body and lift her without effort as she stood from the chair.  She felt the warm breath on the side of her neck, soft kisses on the round of her shoulder.  She heard, and felt, Astra, whispering those words against her skin, the ones that Kryptonian warriors had used for thousands of years to open themselves to one another, as she carried her back to the bed and laid her down on it.

And then, they went at each other, so hard and so hot that it amazed them both that the bed didn’t simply turn to ash underneath them.  Alex pretended to struggle a little, and Astra pretended to let her slip away, and when Astra thought she was about to win Alex’s surrender, Alex managed to get a hand in between their bodies and push her fingers into Astra and Astra instantly fell to pieces for a moment.  But then she rallied and returned the favor, and they rolled back and forth on the bed, kissing and fucking, biting and cursing, and they felt such joy at tasting each other that it was worth every bruise and every scratch that Alex would have later.  

Every last one.


	2. Chapter 2

Astra may not have slept in the sense that humans did it, but after making love, she often drifted off to someplace soft and dark and let the peace of it embrace her, lying there holding one or both of her lovers in her arms.  Today, her gentle return from that place found her on her back in the bed, with Alex on top of her, making soft, snoring sounds against her.  Astra smiled.  She gave Alex’s hair a gentle ruffle.  “Alex,” she sighed.  She had been working to remember that she preferred Alex over Alexandra, though sometimes it could not be helped.  She would always be Alexandra in Astra’s mind.  The name had power, fire, femininity.  Astra loved it.

Alex stirred, kissed Astra’s chest, and then nestled her cheek against it.  

She did not look quite so small or so soft as Maggie did in her sleep, Astra mused, but she nevertheless still looked quite so, and Astra took a moment to enjoy their closeness.  Her delicate humans, and yet sometimes she thought, they were stronger than she was.  

Alex woke a little more and lifted her head.  She stretched her neck and kissed Astra’s mouth, and then slipped back down onto her chest.

“How long was I out?” Alex yawned.

Astra glanced at the clock on the nightstand beside the bed.  “It is eleven,” she announced.

Alex woke up a bit more, rolled off Astra, and rubbed her eyes.  “Jeez, it’s late.”

Astra traced her fingers down Alex’s shoulder.  “What shall we do, today?”

Alex smiled.  “I had a thought.  We found something at work that I want to show you.”

“At the DEO?”  Astra still, after everything, was visibly apprehensive at the idea of going to the DEO.

Alex nodded.  “Yes.  If you can stand to go there.  But I think you’ll really love it and you’ll have some ideas about it that haven’t occurred to the rest of us.”

Astra mustered a smile.  “Very well, then.”

She was curious, but Alex wouldn’t tell her much.  She really seemed to think it would be an interesting surprise.

Astra found it less oppressive going to the DEO that was located in the middle of the city.  It carried none of the baggage of the underground bunker where she had been imprisoned.  While the species that had revived her from death had mercifully left many holes in her memories (she knew she was tortured, but she knew it as a fact, not the memory of kryptonite searing through her veins), they had left enough that she had a rational apprehension at entering the walls of the DEO.  And they had left her memories of Alex;  Alex being fierce, Alex being compassionate, Alex being intelligent and thoughtful and brave.  Those were the only memories she had, but they were also the only ones that mattered.

She remembered, as they traveled, the fourth and last time Alex came to her cell in the DEO.  They were about to release her for the prisoner exchange.

“So,” she had said as she entered the containment room, “it looks like we’re going to be sending you back to Non.”

Astra had smiled.  “A shame.  I was hoping we might have more time to talk.”

Alex spread her hands apart, glanced around the room.  “Well, nothing stopping you now.  What’d you want to talk about?  Your big plan?”

Astra shook her head.  “I think you know better.”

Alex nodded.  “Yeah.  If liquid Kryptonite in your veins didn’t get it out of you, I don’t imagine a tub of chicken noodle soup will do it either.”

Astra had felt a stab of regret at that.  Alex had been kind to her, gentle when she didn’t have to be.  Chicken noodle soup had been medicine, had been nourishment, had been a taste of something that she had forgotten was possible.  “Perhaps not, but I hope to sample some again when I am less compromised.”

Alex looked wry, her mouth twisted into a little half-smile.  “Yeah, well, you know.  You could stay, if you want.  But I think Non would be a little upset.  I don’t think he’d understand you were staying for the chicken soup.”

Astra wanted to laugh.  Alexandra was funny.  Astra saw that spirit in her, that bright star, that burning, beautiful fragment of the ancient ways.  She wondered if Alex was even aware of what she was.  “It would not only be for the soup.”

Alex sighed.  “Right, well, I guess there’s Kara, too.”

She wished that she had found this Alexandra Danvers some other way, some other time.  She knew she was looking at the rare and beautiful warrior spirit.  She had not thought she was destined to find one.  With all the warriors she’d trained and led, not even her husband was imbued with that light.  

The awkward silence had settled between them, then.  Alex had looked her over for a moment and then asked, “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, much better.  Thank you.”

Another long, strange pause.  

“I would like to fight you,” Astra decided after a moment. 

“You already have,” Alex reminded her.  

Astra shook her head.  “I mean, fairly.  On equal footing.  No powers, no Kryptonite weapons.  I believe you would be an interesting challenge.”

And there was no missing the spark in Alex’s look when she said this.  She half thought for a moment that Alex was going to adjust the lights, open up the enclosure and let her have at it.  But she only said, “I’d like that, too.”

“I am a master of seven different styles.  I would not be easy to defeat.”

“No doubt,” Alex agreed, her dark eyes flashing.  She wanted to.  She was cut from that cloth, Astra could see it.  “But I don’t think there’s any way that that ends well, under the present circumstances.”  She gestured around.  “Someone would see us on the cameras, and get the wrong idea, and come busting in, and next thing you know…”

_ You’d be shot up with Kryptonite, _ was what Alex would have said if she had finished her sentence.

Astra nodded.  

“So, back to your husband, then.”  Alex almost sounded regretful.  She produced a pair of silver cuffs with some electronic locking mechanisms on them.  

Astra nodded.  “Back to my husband.”

“Don’t sound so thrilled,” Alex jabbed as she walked toward the cell and began to enter the key code into the lock.  

“I look forward to being reunited with him,” Astra said, but she was unconvincing to her own ears.

Alex’s fingers flowed over the console like water.  “So, I don’t need to say, no funny business or I’ll-”

“Yes, I know.  You will  beat me within an inch of my life.”

“That’s right.”

“It would be entertaining to see you attempt it.”

Alex’s mouth was serious at this, but her eyes danced.  She opened the cell, helped Astra down from it, and put the cuffs on her.  She was a little rough, and the cold of the metal bit into Astra’s wrists.  

Alex recognized her, even if she did not understand what she was seeing.

  
  
  


***********************

  
  


Alex opened the door to the lower level of the DEO labs, and led Astra down a long hallway to an empty lab.  “OK… I think you’re going to like this.”

She felt Astra’s generalized unease at being in the DEO, and without saying anything, or even looking at her, she hooked her fingers through Astra’s as they walked.

She swiped her card in front of a reader and the glass door slid open at the end of the hall.  On a workbench in the middle of the room sat a row of large, square blocks of what appeared to be crystal.  Astra stopped.  She tilted her head and stared at them.  She heard a distinct, soft, pulsing sound.  She looked at Alex, and then back at the crystals.  Yes, it was definitely coming from them.  She could not only hear it, but feel it.  

“Are those…?”

“Yeah.  You can hear that pulsing, right?”

Astra nodded.  “Yes.  But how can you?” 

Alex grinned.  “I can’t.  But when we did the laser scans, we saw it.”

Astra tilted her head and gazed at them, curious to see how deeply down her vision could dig into them.  

“We thought they were just dirty diamonds, at first.  We found them when we were dismantling the Kryian cruiser that crashed outside of Santa Clara.”

“Its pulse is perpetual and even?”  she asked.

“It has been so far.”

“The atoms are breaking symmetry in time, rather than in space,” Astra murmured.  

“According to the laws of physics,” Alex said with a wicked glee, “it’s impossible.  Crystals break symmetry in space but never in time.”

Alex then showed her the scans, the molecular construct, the radioactivity data that they’d gathered while trying to dig into it at the atomic level.

“It is by its nature, unstable,” Astra wondered.  “Yet they appear stable.”

Alex nodded.  “It’s a puzzle, isn’t it.”

“It draws stability from its instability,” Astra decided.

“Right!  It shouldn’t work,” Alex said, “but it does.”

They sifted the data some more, and Astra listened to the crystals and the low, quiet pulse.  They bickered gently about the manner in which such a construction could have occurred.  Astra loved Alex’s mind in moments like this, her ability to think with such critical precision and ask probing questions.  The way she started from a place of doubt and sought an explanation.  The dogged manner in which she sought an unimpeachable conclusion.  

“So, what do you think,” Alex teased, her fingers brushing over the back of Astra’s hand as they peered into the radioscope, “is it a new law of physics, or is it a divine mystery?”

Astra couldn’t help chuckling.  “The mystery is only divine in that it leads to the answers.  The insight is the divine.  The mystery is merely the vehicle.”

Alex shook her head and laughed.  “If you insist.”

Astra didn’t understand her.  “What kind of god wants mysteries?  What kind of God wants their children to turn from the illumination of the universe’s workings?”

“Well, a lot of them, actually,”  Alex retorted.

Astra shook her head. 

“So?  What do you think?” Alex pressed.

“I think you have a crystal that breaks symmetry through time and beats like a human heart.  Regardless of the explanation of physics that makes such a thing possible, how is it anything but the work of the divine?”

And she felt the weight of Alex’s eyes, then, and felt that tug in her stomach, and she knew Alex wanted to kiss her.  She smirked.  “We have missed lunch,” she observed, not really looking at the time.  “It is getting late.”

“I’m not hungry,” Alex decided.  “And I think if the training room’s empty, there’s something I owe you.”

“What’s that?”  Astra was intrigued.

Alex grinned.  “A fair fight.”

  
  
  


***********************

  
  


Astra had been reading Roman history.  She stepped into the sparring ring under the soft green lights and said to Alex, “Remember, thou art mortal.”

Alex laughed and gestured around.  “Remember, there art cameras.”

Astra took her meaning.  No playing too rough and nothing that was going to end in sex.

“Are the lights okay?  This is the setting we use for Kara, but...  You don’t feel sick?  Don’t feel too slow?”

Astra shook her head.  “No, I am fine.”

“Good.”  

And then they began.  Alex did not opt for the typical human tactic of circling one, looking for a weakness.  She dove in immediately, aiming at her left side, where she already knew Astra was slower from when they’d played basketball together once.  She was quick, strong, came in low, did not hesitate.  Astra took her blow, then caught her, pulled her backward, and tried to flip her.  But Alex landed in a tuck and finished crouching behind her.  

It felt good, this kind of unrestrained contact.  For however rough they were when making love, Astra still had to hold back.  And she was used to that.  But there was something delicious and almost decadent about the total lack of restraint.  She could pin Alex’s body down against the mat, and not worry so much about breaking her.  She could aim a kick at her ribs and only worry that it might bruise, which Alex didn’t mind, not that she might break several ribs, which Astra wagered she probably _would_ mind.  

She switched styles several times, finding that Alex was quick to adapt.  She had the best success with an approach based on wrestling-type holds that Alex struggled to break out of, rather than those that relied upon kicking and punching.  

It didn’t hurt that that meant spending a lot of time with her arms around Alex, pressed against her, occasionally being crushed by her.  She loved it when Alex used her force against her and managed to pin her down.  “Wonderful!” she’d exclaim with enthusiasm.

And then she’d break free, and they’d begin again.

She won, in the end, but Alex did not make it easy.  They finished with Alex on her stomach, arm bent behind her back, Astra on top of her, both sweating, both panting.  She felt good, her Alexandra.  “Surrender,” she whispered into the shell of Alex’s ear as she strained, trying fruitlessly to break Astra’s hold.

“Dammit,” was all Alex would say.

“Surrender, Alexandra,” Astra repeated.

“ _ Goddamnit _ ,” Alex said again.

“I will reward you at home,” Astra crooned in her ear, “but you must yield.  I have won this time.”

Alex surrendered.

  
  
  


*******************

  
  


Having skipped lunch to spar, they were extra hungry.  Alex grilled burgers: two for herself, four for Astra.  Astra lounged on the deck while she grilled, eyes closed, enjoying the smell of the cooking, and of the fire itself.  There was something primitive about it, something that her people had lost, and it made Astra’s body connect with itself in ways that had surprised her the first time it had happened.  

They sat together outdoors, under the gathering dusk and the strings of fairy lights that crisscrossed the deck, devouring their dinner and enjoying that natural, easy quiet that often fell between them.  After demolishing the third of her four burgers, Astra looked up at Alex.  “Alex.”   


“Hm?” Alex asked, her mouth full of charred meat.

“What am I to you?”

Alex looked taken aback.  “Is this a trick question?”   


Astra shook her head.  “No trick.  Just a question.  What am I to you?”

Alex thought for a minute.  “You’re my girlfriend,” she said, seeming dissatisfied with this answer.  “But I don’t think that’s the answer you’re looking for.”   


Astra shook her head.

“What am I to you?” Alex asked.

Astra thought.  She spent a few minutes eating her last burger before answering.  “You are… my lover.  My guide.  My …”  She floundered a moment, looking for the word for what Maggie’s faith called those humans who were gifted by their God with powers to care for his flock on earth.  “...saint…”

As she expected, Alex laughed.  “I’m not a saint.”

“But you are  _ my _ saint.”

Alex shook her head.  She put her food down, and gazed at Astra through the descending blue of evening.  “Then you, Astra, are my mystery.  And all that that entails.”  She moved closer, till she was kneeling beside the lounge chair where Astra sat.  Her eyes were large and sincere.  “I didn’t understand what I felt for you in the beginning.  I didn’t understand why I felt pulled to you.  I still don’t know, not entirely.  But I’m determined to know the full measure of this mystery.”

“Mystery is the vehicle to the divine,” Astra reminded her with a gentle smile.

“Then show me the divine,” Alex whispered, taking her hand. “Because I can’t explain why I’m pulled to you, I never could.  I just want to know you, more, and deeper, and better.  I need the answers.”  

Then Astra leaned down, took Alex’s chin in one hand, and kissed her, softly.  “I have them.”   She stroked Alex’s cheek, lingered in her softness.  “I know why I was pulled to you, but I crave that deeper knowledge of you, just the same.”   


Alex kissed her again, and as easily as that, dinner was forgotten.

“Make my body yours,” Alex whispered.

“Yes,” Astra sighed against her lips.

“Be gentle,” Alex whispered.

“Yes,” Astra whispered.  Between their rough lovemaking this morning and their sparring this afternoon, Alex was probably a little sore.  

Her Alexandra.  Astra had been brought to her, improbably, from across light years, and then again, from beyond the breach of death itself.  Astra hungered after her, her skin, her mouth, the sounds of her sighs, the warmth of her breath, because it could not be otherwise.  She knew no other way to be.  

There would be poetry tonight, but it would not write itself in words.  They would be crystals, beating hearts, finding stability in their instability, breaking symmetry through time.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Best get yourself a glass of water first.

Sex with Astra was incredible and hot when she was rough and directly to the point.  When she was gentle, it was something else entirely.  They both were alike in that they were physical people; their emotions expressed themselves in their bodies.  To go tenderly left room for all of those other feelings to bubble up that often got drowned out in the heat of their more energetic, hungry fucking.

They had taken their time with undressing.  Astra had asked Alex to take her clothes off, slowly, so that she could enjoy watching her.  Alex had shivered with desire as Astra’s eyes, those burning eyes, took in every inch of skin as she bared it.  And then, Alex had, with the utmost restraint, taken Astra’s clothing from her, a piece at a time.  They made no move to stimulate one another’s bodies apart from this.  

Patience was a virtue they had both been learning from Maggie.

And now, Astra was reclined against the thick pile of pillows, not flat on her back, but in relaxed repose.  Alex was straddling Astra’s hips in the bed, and Astra was looking up at her as though she was the only thing in the world that mattered.  She knew Astra could hear the thud of her heartbeat, could smell her arousal, thick in between them.  The air was heavy with their wanting and still, they remained tranquil, slow, taking each other in.

Alex dwelled for a few long moments on those eyes, ocean blue-green and swirling with stars, and their hard, dark pupils.  Breasts sized perfectly for Alex’s hands, dusted with the faintest hints of blue veins beneath the marble skin.  And her skin; bulletproof, but somehow possessed of an unearthly softness.  Maggie was right, Astra was like a Greek statue of some war goddess, and somehow, Alex was naked in bed with her.  

Astra reached up, trailed fingers down Alex’s arms, starting at her shoulders.  With pent-up need weighing in between them, just that soft touch sent a wave of heat through Alex, set her nerves blazing.  She sighed deeply.

“You are a gift,” Astra whispered.

Alex bit her lip.  She reached down, and brushed her fingers across Astra’s lips.  Astra caught one in her mouth, sucked gently on it, and then released it.  Alex gave a quiet moan.  

“I am sorry,” Astra murmured, then, and she trailed her fingers down Alex’s skin again.  Alex shuddered with delight.  The delicious craving grew.  “I was not enough for you, then.  I would not have known how to give you this.”

Alex’s eyes closed for a moment.  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she sighed in response.  She reached down with the finger that Astra had taken into her mouth, and drew its wet fingertip down Astra’s throat, down between her breasts, down the pale scar that she’d left there in what seemed like another lifetime, because it was.  “I wasn’t brave enough for you, then.”

Astra moaned, soft and low, at that touch.  “I wish I had found you some other way.  I wish I had been enough to free you from the things you feared.”  Her breathing trembled a little and she raked her fingers lightly up Alex’s thighs, up her waist, up her breasts with her nipples that stood stiff even in the warm room.

Alex gasped, shuddering, and felt herself get so wet that she knew Astra could feel it.  She leaned down, so that their warm breasts touched each other, and they both sighed at the contact.  And then she kissed Astra’s mouth, soft and deep, and lingered in that for a moment.  “I wouldn’t have known how to love you, then,” she confessed.  “I needed to meet Maggie, to learn that.  We both did.”  She sat back up.

Astra’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears as she gazed up at her, and again, she stroked her skin with a soft reverence.  Alex’s desire had so heightened her senses that all of her skin was an erogenous zone.  Even those gentle touches, those fingers trailing lightly down her belly, felt so good, they might as well have gone all the way down to her pussy.   “You were stronger than you realized, and braver than you knew. We were not ready for each other, then.”

Alex’s eyes welled up, and all of Astra’s touches danced like flames along her skin.

“We had so many words on Krypton for love, for different kinds of love,” Astra was saying, and her fingers became more purposeful in their touching.  “We had so many, and yet all of them…”  She faltered.

“I know…”  Alex sighed.  Astra made her feel things that challenged spoken language, that only could be said with their bodies.

Astra’s hands gently gripped Alex’s hips.  Alex was trying to restrain herself, trying not to rock against Astra, but she was, a little, in spite of herself.  Their bodies were talking and they needed to be heard.  Astra’s hands encouraged her to find a gentle rhythm.  “Alex… we had _al’lo’an_ , and it was family love and duty and devotion, but you and Maggie, you are my family, now… we had _kirr’rit_ , and it was friendship and respect but I feel this also…”  Astra began to move underneath her and Alex whimpered.  “We had _ba’shevv_ , the passion felt by our people before such things were bred out of us, and Rao, do I feel that with you… we had _kar’rao_ , the love of our God, but Alexandra…”  They were moving against each other now, their hips finding rhythm together.  “...Alexandra, at no time to do I feel closer to my god than when I am with you, and with Maggie, and we are…”  She faltered.

Alex gripped Astra’s forearms.  “Astra, I love you,” she sighed.

“I love you, Alexandra,” Astra answered.  “In all the ways that I know of, all the ways that I know how.”  Her hand shifted and laid a thumb against Alex’s clit.  The sweetness of it, the heat that blossomed at her touch, sent a shudder through her frame.  

“Oh, fuck,” Alex moaned.  The tension of patience, of waiting, had built her craving to a nearly unbearable pitch and that moment of contact was like match to gasoline.  

“Yes,” Astra sighed, her face ecstatic.  “Yes, Alex, yes.”  Her hips moved underneath Alex, her thumb continuing its firm, gentle pressure on that bundle of nerves.  

Alex was rooted firmly in her body, with its sore muscles and its scratched back and its bruised shoulders.  She was inhabiting herself fully, and loving it, loving what Astra was doing to her.  She forced her eyes open and looked at Astra’s face, and they stared at each other, wide-eyed, luminous, awed at how their passion felt when filtered through such tenderness.

“Astra,” she moaned softly.  “Astra…”  She gazed a moment more on those eyes, soft with wonder and affection, those lips, her hair spread in a wild fan across the pillows, the rippling of her stomach muscles as she ground her hips, the gentle sway of her breasts.   _Good god,_ she thought.  She felt Astra’s strong hand, cupping her ribcage just below her breast.  And the she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the rhythms of her touching, tossed her hips forward again and again in search of it.  Because Astra’s fingers had always, always known what felt good.  Alex gave herself up to the liquid warmth that filled her limbs from the point of pressure where Astra’s thumb rubbed her steady as a heartbeat, from the trails of heat that her fingers left up and down the front of her body.  Her pleasure grew and spilled down into every nerve and muscle, every limb, and she went elastic under Astra’s touch.  

Astra saw and felt the change, and she cried, “Ah, there it is, my Alexandra!  Your beautiful surrender.”

And Alex reached down, and stilled her hand for a moment, and looked at Astra.  “Why is that important to you?”  she asked through shallow breaths, and she made herself stop moving against Astra for a moment.  “Why do you crave my surrender so much?”

And her eyes were wide, and stars swirled in their depths and Alex suddenly understood what she had not before; she saw Astra as hers, fully hers, saw her as an incandescent light in the dark, saw that brilliant, ancient spirit in her, and she knew Astra’s answer before she said it:  “Because I myself had surrendered the moment I touched you.  I cannot bear to be alone in it.”

And Alex’s eyes slipped closed, and she wanted to say a million things.  She wanted to say, _Astra, I love you, I surrender, I’m yours, you’re so fucking beautiful, please don’t stop, just take me, just fuck me, leave your fingerprints all over me,_ but she only managed, after a moment of drowning in the sensation of being touched again, to gasp, “My body … is yours…”

“Yes!” Astra exclaimed softly.

“I see you!” she moaned, not quite so softly.

“Yes!” Astra cried. She made a few inarticulate sounds that came from someplace low in her body, and then groaned, “Your body is mine.”

“Yes.”  Alex was moving herself faster now, greedy for Astra’s touch.

“Your mouth,” Astra panted, brushing a finger over Alex’s lips.

“Yes.”

“Your neck.”  Fingers trailed down her throat.

“Yes.”

“Your breasts.”  Warm fingers closed around a breast, squeezing firmly, but not hard.

“Yes… oh, fuck!”  Alex was near to release.  “I’m close,” she panted.

“I know,” Astra purred, and she sounded like velvet.  She pressed her thumb in against Alex’s clit for emphasis as she said, “And _this_. This is mine.”

Alex’s body was a bowstring pulled to its limits, ready and dying to snap back.  “Yes, it’s yours,” she cried.  The closeness of orgasm was frustratingly just out of reach and she moved harder against Astra, wanting more.

“Tell me the name for it that lovers use,” Astra demanded, her voice thick with lust.

Alex cursed softly again, then panted, “P-pussy.”

And Astra sighed blissfully, as if the word had imbued her with some power, and she whispered, “Ah…. Yes, I know this name…  Alexandra, your pussy is mine.”

That was the end of Alex.  She cursed, and moaned Astra’s name.  She quivered in Astra’s lap, shivering against her touches, sighing, coming, in wave after sweet, hot wave.  She was a vibration in the stars, a rumble deep in the planets.  She heard Astra saying her name over and over and all she could manage was to answer yes, and yes, and yes.

  
  


***********************

  


Alex had been frightened the first time Astra touched her.  And the second, too.  Those memories echoed faintly in her sleep as she lay tangled in Astra’s body.

 

> _“If you wish me to stop, I will stop.”_
> 
> _“Why… why is this happening….?”_
> 
> _“Again… If you wish me me to stop, I will stop.”_
> 
> _“Oh, God.”_
> 
> _“Tell me what you wish.”_
> 
> _“Oh, God.  That.  What you’re doing.  I want that.”_
> 
> _“Yes, human! Your body is ready for me.”_
> 
> _“Don’t-”_
> 
> _“Dilated pupils, elevated heartbeat, the hairs on your arms-”_
> 
> _“Astra, don’t talk.”_
> 
> _“-I can smell your arousal, I can see the erectile tissue of your-”_
> 
> _“Jesus Christ.  Don’t say any more.  Just… oh, God.”_
> 
> _“Do you wish me to stop?”_
> 
> _“God, no, don’t stop.”_

 

Alex shook her head at the memory.  Even then, Astra had only had to stand very close, only had to touch her; shoulders, neck, waist, hips, the small of her back.  That was all, and Alex had felt her body wake up, wanting more of her touch.  Wanting it everywhere.  She felt herself get wet.  She felt her nipples get hard, straining against her sports bra.  This was not a fear response and she damn well knew it.  

She didn’t understand how it could be happening.  She didn’t understand how her body could betray her this way. _A woman?  The enemy?  Kara’s aunt?_ Was there _anything_ right about it?

She hadn’t understood.  But she did, now.  She lay contemplating what she had seen just now when they made love.  Astra had talked so many times about the _kothirim_ , the warrior spirit, the inner light, and Alex knew she believed in it.  And Alex had accepted it, on some level, as a metaphor, as a way of talking about the gravitational pull that existed between them and always had.  But she swore that this time, she had _seen_ it.  

It defied rationality, defied explanation.  But then, so had their entire relationship.  Nevertheless, she now understood something.  Astra spoke of surrender, but it was not to each other that they surrendered, but to the pull of that force that was greater than both of them.   _I had surrendered the moment I touched you,_ she had said, _I could not bear to be alone in it._ She had given herself over, not to Alex, but to the strength of what drew them together.  Alex’s surrender, when she gave it, was so sweet to her because it was not her surrendering to Astra, but joining her in something that was larger than both of them.

Astra was holding her now, tightly against her chest, and kissing the top of her head.  “My Alex,” she sighed.  

Alex kissed the scar on her chest and smiled.  She appreciated that Astra was trying to remember to call her Alex.  “You can use my whole name if you want.  I know what it means to you.”

Astra kissed her head again and sighed, “Alexandra…”

And then they melted into each other for a few long moments.

“You saw me,” Astra observed after a long quiet.

“Yes.”

“It was different this time.”

“I don’t know,” Alex hedged.  “Maybe.”

“No maybe.”  Astra was having none of it.  “I saw the way you looked at me.  It was different.”

Alex bit her lip for a moment, hesitating.  “I saw… I don’t know.  I saw something in your eyes, I guess.  I understood what it meant to _see you_.  I understood what you meant when you said you saw me.  What’s between us… it’s bigger than either one of us.”

“This is what I have been saying to you since–”

“I know, I know,”  Alex pre-empted her.  “I didn’t understand.”  She picked up her head, and shifted to lean in and kiss Astra’s mouth.  “I told you, I’m a scientist.  I need proof.”

They lost themselves in deep, slow kisses, then, for a long while.

“Well,” Alex sighed, when they finally pulled apart.  “That’s all the proof I need.”

She was only half kidding.

Alex fell asleep feeling full.  She fell asleep feeling that they crossed a threshold just then.  Astra had thought that she was somehow not enough for her before, that she had not been sufficient reason for Alex to find her courage.  But this was not so.  Alex had to learn how to love; she had not known that, had not understood she was capable of that.  She thought, and hoped, that Astra understood that now.  And she had been castigating herself for cowardice, for failing to be strong enough to love her, to defend her, back then, but Astra saw more strength in her than she had seen in herself.  She was right.  They had not been ready for each other.

Were they now?  She didn’t know.  They were certainly _more_ ready.  Maybe, she suspected, you were never really ready for a thing like this.

She woke up in the night to find Astra awake, scrolling through her facebook feed on her phone.  As promised, there were a number of Maggie selfies with various adorable zoo animals.  They spent a few moments chuckling together over them.  Alex traced her fingers over the screen, over Maggie’s beautiful smile and dimples so big an entire party of mountain climbers could get lost in them.  Maggie was part of their shared fate, too.  She was so much of what made any of it possible.

  
The fact was, none of this should be possible, and yet it was.  Alex fell back asleep, musing over what new laws of physics they were discovering.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gentle gays eat pancakes

Astra, when she woke, had spent a few long, precious moments looking at Alex’s peaceful, sleeping face, brushed with pale yellow morning through the drawn vertical blinds in the bedroom.  It was still relatively new to her, this practice of dwelling in physical closeness, but she had quickly come to crave it.  To feel the warmth of another’s body close beside her, to soak in their scent, the soothing rhythm of their breath, the silk of their skin, the variations in pressure and heat of being curled around them, or having them curled around her, or on a night when she was fortunate, both.  She loved the addictive pleasures of sex, of course, but her skin hungered almost as much for this.  Alex’s nearness filled Astra’s soul with a sense of peace and comfort.  There had been a strange, arcane mythology around sex and desire, but this simple, glorious feeling of existing beside someone was something she never knew she needed.

She dropped a gentle kiss on Alex’s shoulder and left her slumbering in the bed.  She slipped into some soft flannel shorts and a tank top and began pulling together what she needed in the kitchen to make breakfast.  

Alex had  _ seen _ her last night, seen her in that ancient way.  Astra had always seen Alex that way, had always seen that clear fire that emanated from her, that inner light.  She had seen it the moment she first laid eyes upon her, after Alex had defeated the Helgrammite, and removed her helmet afterwards.  She had seen it then, and every time after.  She could not deny what Alex was, but she needed to touch her to be sure.  And then, ah… well.  And then, she needed to  _ keep _ touching her.  Again, again, again.  

It had hurt inside, in those days, in ways she didn’t have words for. It had been so confusing when Alex seemed so frightened at first, so resistant.  But then, how her spirit soared when she felt Alex let go, and felt her become as rough and hungry as Astra felt in her own heart and body.  She didn’t want Alex to fear.  What happened when their bodies met was rare and incredible.  Alex never wanted to talk afterwards, she always wanted to run away, and Astra would gaze after her with raw longing in her face, not even caring if Alex could see it.  Astra wanted her, and would have her any way she could, and that was that.  

They had said important things to each other last night.  She wanted Alex to forgive herself for what they had not had the first time around.  She wanted Alex to forgive herself for not rescuing her at those moments that she seemed to feel she should have.  They had not been ready for each other when they met.  Astra had been married, then, with no frame of reference for the kind of of passion she felt for Alex, save for that which had been described in the epic poetry of Kel-Lo and Rana.  Alex had not even known that it was possible for her to love someone like Astra.  Their passion burned hot enough that it cut through that nonetheless, but fate had been against them.

No, it was death, and time, and change, that had made their life together possible now.  And of course, at the heart of much of that was Maggie.

She wasn’t conscious of missing Maggie’s presence at that particular moment, but she reasoned that she must be as she switched on the boombox in the kitchen and softly filled the air with the now-familiar sounds of The Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street”.  She smiled to herself as the greasy, deep-blues thump of “Ventilator Blues” began.  So primal, she thought, so unabashedly sexual.  Krypton had not had anything like it, and she had quickly come to love it as much as Maggie did. 

So she cooked, and the music played, and her body responded to it in the ways it had learned that night Maggie had taught her how to dance to it at the rock and roll show.

The gut-grabbing, groaning blues rhythm had gotten into her limbs, into her spine.  She had heard Alex rise from the bed and was aware of her leaning in the doorway, watching her with great pleasure, but she did not stop or change anything about what she was doing.  

“I know those moves,” Alex finally said, and her voice was edged with distinct appreciation for them.

Yes, surely Alex knew the twist of her hips, the sway of her shoulders, because Astra had learned to dance from Maggie.  And Maggie had surely shown them to Alex on many occasions.  “Hm,” Astra responded, continuing her movements without turning around.  

After a moment, Alex added, “Pretty sexy, there, General.”  Astra liked it when Alex used her old title as an endearment. And she found she rather enjoyed being the object of Alex’s desire.  

Astra turned to her after a few moments and gave her a small smile.  “Good morning,” was all she said, and lowered the radio a little.  Her Alex had messy morning hair and her eyes were still just a little cloudy.  It filled Astra’s chest with an inexplicable lightness and affection to see her so.  

“Nah, turn it up,” Alex said, and, yawning, shuffled into the kitchen.  Astra turned back to the stove to flip a pancake and turn the bacon sizzling in the pan.  Alex came up behind her, kissed the back of her neck, and placed her hands on her still faintly swaying hips.  “Smells good.”

“This one is yours,” Astra replied without looking at her.  “It needs approximately a minute and a half more.”

Alex chuckled.  Astra’s studied precision seemed to amuse her.     
  
Maggie seemed to cook from her gut, improvising things, feeling them, somehow just knowing when to take things off the burner or how much saffron to add to her rice without measuring.  Astra, on the other hand, had watched Maggie intently as she cooked, counted off how many blueberries she added to her pancakes, how many minutes they cooked on each side, exactly how much vegetable oil was added to the skillet beforehand, and duplicated her efforts exactly.  Alex might think that was funny, but Astra’s pancakes came out good every time. 

She was unperturbed by Alex’s efforts to distract her by kissing the back of her neck and shoulders; she took her missions seriously and her mission was a perfect blueberry pancake. After a minute and a half, as promised, Astra lifted the golden-brown pancake from the skillet and deposited it on a plate, followed by two pieces of bacon, and laid the spread on the island behind her.  Alex kissed her much too enthusiastically. 

“It is only pancakes and bacon,” Astra teased. 

“I really like bacon,” Alex mumbled against her lips.

“Mm,” Astra mumbled back, and kissed her again.  “I see.”

“And you put the right number of blueberries in the pancakes.”

“Twenty-four?” Astra asked.  Another kiss.

Alex laughed.  “I never count.  It looks right, though.”  Alex took periodic bites of her breakfast while she made coffee in the French press, and Astra went back to the stove to make her own stack of pancakes and bacon.

They are and drank their coffee for a moment in comfortable quiet.  Then Alex looked at her fondly and asked, “You miss her, don't you.”

Astra nodded.  “A little.  Is it wrong?”

Alex shook her head. “Not at all.  I do too.”  

Astra had finished eating, so she got up, cleared her plate, and while Alex was finishing her meal, Astra took the small watering can on the counter and watered Maggie’s bonsai trees that sat in a row along the shelf over the counter.  Alex watched her for a moment, smiling.  

“Hey,” she said once Astra was done. “I almost forgot, I have something for you.”

Astra looked at her with mild surprise.  “What is it?”

“Go look in the hall closet, in the big white shopping bag.”

Astra went out to the hall closet and opened it, and found the large, white paper shopping bag sitting on the floor of it.  She picked it up, carried it to the kitchen counter, and inspected the contents: a smallish bag of potting soil, a couple of shallow trays divided into several rows of little squares each, a few small hand tools including a small spade and a small rake slightly larger than the ones that Maggie used to care for her bonsai trees, and a bunch of different seed packets.   Tomatoes, peas, salad greens, and a number of herbs, including basil and parsley.  Astra didn’t quite know all the herbs yet and what they were for but she was familiar with the vegetables.  She looked at Alex, quizzical.

“Well,” Alex began, clearly looking pleased with herself, “we have all this deck space, you know, and I was thinking, you might enjoy having a little garden out there.”

Astra struggled to process this idea.  A garden?  In their apartment?  

“These trays,” she went on, “are the starter kit, so we put a little soil in each of these squares and plant a seed in each.”

Astra began to understand.  This was something she only understood academically, that she had not had the opportunity to really do.  Growing things!  Green things!  Things they could eat!  And she would get to watch them from their infancy!

“And then–”  And now Alex was becoming excited.  “–when the seedlings are big enough, we can go get some bigger planters or even this mini-greenhouse thing that they sell at the gardening store, and we transplant the seedlings to bigger planters and then we have a real garden out there and you can grow vegetables and herbs and we can eat them.”  She grinned, giving her an expectant look.

Astra stared at her, and then at the haul spread out before her on the kitchen counter.  After a few speechless moments in which Alex was looking at her anxiously, she grabbed Alex’s shoulders and kissed her passionately.  “This is a wonderful idea,” she said breathlessly.  And then they took the trays outdoors and, following the instructions on the packaging, filled each square with the right amount of soil and plant food, and planted each square with different types of seeds which they labeled carefully.  

“How long will they take to begin growing?”

“Hmm, you should see something in…”  Alex picked up one of the packets and read the back.  “...the tomatoes say five to twelve days.”

“That is a lifetime!” Astra complained.  She had been born into a dying world, and now finding herself presented with the opportunity to watch things grow, she was impatient to see the process take place.

Alex laughed.  “No, General, it’s really not.”

Astra nodded grudgingly, but still came as close as she ever would to pouting.  “I know, my brave one, but now I am too excited.”

Alex arched an eyebrow at her.  Astra took its meaning and smiled.  She kissed Alex again.

“Thank you, Alex,” she whispered.  “It is one of the best gifts I have ever received.”

Alex laughed.  “Come on.”

But Astra was serious.  She put her hands on Alex’s waist and gazed at her face.  She noticed with some amusement that she had a little smudge of dirt on her cheek.  “You understand, Alex, that I never got to see things grow on Krypton.  Even by the time I was born, Krypton was a shell of its former self.  The only vegetables were grown in industrial greenhouses, far removed from the way it is possible to grow things here.  If you recall Kara seeming staggered when she saw things like trees and cornfields, that is why.  We did not have growing things by the time I was born, much less by the time she was born.”  

“I know,” Alex answered softly.

Astra kissed Alex’s forehead, then.  “Creating life will be a new experience,” she said.  “One that I did not expect I would ever have.”

  
  


********

 

After they planted the seeds, they left the trays on the counter because, over the course of the morning, a dark nimbostratus cloud had slowly settled over their part of town and was threatening rain.  Astra was disappointed that the seeds would not get sun that day, but Alex assured her that tomorrow’s weather was supposed to be better.

“What shall we do instead, then?” Astra asked.  “Movie?”

Alex shook her head.  “I was thinking a puzzle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here, let’s make some more coffee and I’ll show you.”

Alex pulled a box from the hall closet, on which was printed a painting of a lake with water lilies.  “I know this painting,” she murmured.  “I have seen it at the museum.”

“Yeah, probably,” Alex agreed.  “It’s a Monet.  It’s very famous.”

Astra took the box from Alex and shook it.  “But what is inside?”

Alex smiled and opened the box, and then poured out a bunch of different oddly shaped pieces.  “It’s the picture,” she explained.  “But we have to put it together.”

Astra nodded.  She didn’t quite understand this activity but it was an opportunity to sit and drink more coffee with Alex and learn, about her, or Earth, or Monet, or whatever it would turn out to be.  Alex chose some unobtrusive jazz to play in the background while they worked and she explained the approach to the problem.  They divided the five hundred pieces up into a pile of pieces with straight edges that would make up the frame, and then the rest that would make up the majority of the image.

Astra was frustrated at first, even with the painting on the box to refer to, until Alex patiently soldiered through enough that the picture started to become evident.  There were so many pieces.  She began sorting them by color, and that helped to clarify things for her.  She began to recognize how a piece of a lily that disappeared off of the teardrop-shaped edge of one piece was meant to join up with another piece of lily that was on another piece with an indentation that fit the first perfectly.  She saw how a dappled bit of light on water that had a bite taken from it where the piece needed its mate was completed on another.  She began to see the meditative properties inherent in this activity, how the patience and calm of it appealed to Alex.

“We are like a puzzle,” she mused as they assembled the painting.  

“Mm,” Alex responded absently, piecing together a section of moss that would eventually live in the lower left corner.  “It takes a bit of work and patience to figure us out.”

Astra’s mouth quirked a little.  “What I mean is… Things that spill out of you, they fit into me, and the empty places where something needs completion… And the edges where I am broken, fit the edges where you and Maggie are broken in a different way.”

Alex smiled.  “I guess that’s true.”

They worked in quiet for a few more minutes, drinking their coffee and listening to the gentle tapping of the rain against the glass door to the deck.  Astra looked at a darker section of the puzzle, trying to figure out where the waterline went relative to the block of shadow she had assembled.  “But how does it work,” she asked, “when you do not know what the picture will look like when you are done?”

Alex looked up, her eyes warm and affectionate, and stroked the back of her hand.  “Then you don’t worry about what it looks like.  You just feel your way through.  When you find a place where a piece feels like it fits, you just let it fit.”

Astra smiled back at her, and they continued working.

“Sometimes,” Alex commented after a few minutes, “a puzzle is trying to put something together when you can what you’re trying to get to.  Sometimes, it’s finding the answer.  But sometimes, it’s finding the question.”

Astra smiled.  She thought again of the pulsating crystals in the DEO lab and how she and Alex were so concerned with the how, they had not even gotten to the why, or the what.  She considered that they had layers of questions yet to even ask.  She thought of descending through those layers with Alex, unraveling the mysteries, to discover what could be an entirely new state of matter.  She thought of how she loved Alex’s mind when it was attacking a puzzle.  

“There is more than one purpose to a puzzle,” Astra realized.

Alex nodded.  “And more than one kind of puzzle.”

They dropped the last few sections into place, and stopped a moment to gaze on the water lilies spread out on the table in front of them.

“We are not this kind of puzzle,” Astra decided.  “We do not have a picture.  And we fit together in more than one way.”

Alex kissed the back of her hand.  “Yeah.  We do.”  She glanced outside and saw that it had stopped raining, and that the sun was valiantly trying to break through the clouds.  “Hey, let’s put your seeds out for a little while.”

They would have water.  Air.  Pale yellow sun.  And love.  And they would flourish and grow.


	5. Chapter 5

After a long, relaxed shower together, Alex had fallen asleep in Astra’s arms, leaning back on her, and they napped together on the couch while watching a small, gentle Wes Anderson film, something with a gauzy acoustic guitar soundtrack and a pair of innocent-looking kids as the film's leads.  Between the film’s softness, and being held tightly against Astra’s warm chest, she didn’t stand much chance.  She slipped in and out of consciousness; soft dreams, soft waking.  They’d wake up, make out a little, nestle against each other, and nap some more.  The rain had come back, and so the seed trays had come back in, and the wet, earthy smell somehow added to the hazy calm of the afternoon.

“Maggie will be back soon,” Astra murmured, drowsy and soft against Alex’s cheek.

“Mm,” Alex sighed.  “That’ll be nice.”

She felt Astra’s face smile against hers.  “Yes.”

Alex drifted off again, dim dreams of the three of them being together scrolling lazily behind her eyes.  She was softly jostled awake by Astra’s quiet chuckling.  “Hm?”

“You were snoring,” Astra sighed with amusement.  

“I wasn’t,” Alex objected.  

“You were,” Astra insisted.

Alex scowled, though without much conviction, so in the end it was really more of a pout.  “Fine.”

Astra kissed her cheek, and then her jaw, and then down the side of her neck and her shoulder.  “Do not pout,” she whispered.  “You know I cannot resist you when you do that.”

Warm fingers scrabbled at the hem of Alex’s tee shirt.  “Hm, well then, don’t resist, maybe?”  she suggested, her voice turning playful.

Astra growled a little in her ear and balled up the fabric of Alex’s shirt in her hand.  “Alexandra,” she scolded, “we are waiting for Maggie.  She texted thirty minutes ago.  She will be home soon.”

Alex grinned.  She loved that frustrated growl in Astra’s voice.  “We don’t run out of batteries, you know,” she laughed.  Astra nipped the side of her neck, hard enough to hurt a little in a way that she liked.  “Hey!” she pretended to protest, but she kind of hoped she’d do it again.

Alex felt another little stab of pleasant pain as Astra’s teeth sank into her earlobe, felt the brush of her lips and her hot breath against it as she rasped, “Alexandra, tell me… when she gets home… would you want her to find us…”

“Fucking on the couch?” Alex finished helpfully.  “I hardly think she’d mind.”

Astra’s hand was clutching and releasing Alex’s shirt, and her breath was growing hotter on Alex’s neck.  “We will not start without her,” she insisted.

Alex agreed, of course, but she had come to appreciate Maggie’s fondness for teasing, and she sighed, “Oh, if you insist.”

Astra kissed the back of her neck several times, then bit her again.  Ah, that was good.  Too good.

Still.  “Maybe you just don’t want to fuck me,” Alex pressed.  

Astra growled again and squeezed Alex’s shoulders.  “You know I do.”

Alex shivered.  She should probably knock it off.  “I don’t believe you.”

“I do want to fuck you, Alexandra,” Astra whispered in a low, hot rasp.  “Very much.”  Her voice made Alex’s thighs tremble.  “But we are going to wait.”

Alex groaned.  “Alright, alright.”  She had pushed it too far and now she was as frustrated as Astra sounded.  Idiot.  

It was fun though.  She loved the way Astra sounded when she was just barely restraining herself.  It was kind of worth the agony she was inflicting on herself to hear Astra get hot and animalistic like that.

Mercifully, Maggie’s keys were scraping in the lock a moment later.  Alex heard the door swing open and saw Astra dash in a blur down the hall to the foyer to scoop Maggie up in her arms before she’d even set her overnight bag down.

“Whoa!” Maggie managed to yelp before Astra’s mouth covered hers in an enthusiastic kiss.  She dropped her bag to the floor with a soft thud.  Alex chuckled.

Maggie drew back for a moment and grinned at her. “Hi.  Miss me?”

“Yes,” Astra answered, and stalked off toward the bedroom, carrying Maggie with no effort whatsoever.

“Where are we going?”

“To bed.”

“Don't you wanna see my pictures from my trip?”

“Later.”

Alex cackled.  “I got her all riled up for you.  Sorry.”

“No you're not!” Maggie called over Astra’s shoulder as they disappeared into the bedroom.

“Yeah, not really!” Alex called after them, laughing.  Then she jumped up off the couch and followed them, leaving a trail of her clothing in her wake.  

  
  
  


**********

  
  


An hour and a half later, they were tangled up in the bed.  The evening was creeping in with a muted purple outside the window.  Astra was sitting behind Maggie, who was leaning back against her, and Astra’s arms were around her waist.  Alex was tucked next to Maggie, head on her shoulder and a leg thrown over her, relaxing together in the gentle dusk.

Alex and Astra had welcomed her home by more or less fucking her until she couldn’t string together sentences anymore, and then, because she was entirely too exhausted after the long drive home and then her two ridiculous lovers having their way with her repeatedly, she had lain back in the bed and watched them go at each other in their usual athletic fashion.  It was nice to have each other in Maggie’s presence, feel her appreciation for their rough brand of passion, enjoy her occasional comments:  _ Oh, good girl, Ally … Mmm, look at her gorgeous face, she loves that… _

It always surprised Alex how sexy it made her feel to introduce a performative aspect to things, to be conscious of Maggie’s presence, and to go for things that Astra would enjoy so much that her pleasure would be enough to get Maggie off just by watching.

In any case, they were wrung out now, and enjoying being close to each other, being warm and soft and tired together in their big soft bed in their room that smelled like sex.  Alex was happy to have the feel of Maggie’s skin beside her again, her scent all over her skin, the taste of her all over her lips.  She hadn’t been away that long, and the time she and Astra had had alone together was both precious and necessary, but Maggie brought something that neither of them did, and Alex found that she was glad to have it back.

“I promised you something, Alex,” Astra said, after a long quiet.

“Hm,” Alex sighed, trailing her fingers over Maggie’s belly.

“Actually, it is something that both of you wanted.”

Maggie smiled wearily.  “What’s that, babe?”

Astra was quiet for a moment.  She kissed the top of Maggie’s head, then brushed a bit of Alex’s hair out of her face.  “Alex asked me why I never shared with you my poetry.  And I tried to explain that it was because I cannot remember the things I wrote before my death, and the things that I have written since were too sad and too strange, or simply too hard to translate from Kryptonese.”

Alex lifted her head and looked at Astra, who was gazing down at her and Maggie with such tenderness.

“But I have written something in English, Alex, while you were sleeping on the couch and if you both still want it, I will share it.”

Maggie wriggled a little and settled back against Astra’s chest.  “Hell yeah, I want it.”

“Of course,” Alex agreed.

Astra lowered her head, closed her eyes, and began softly:

“I honor those spirits who came before  
Stars in a firmament whose borders are endless  
And whose gravity has compelled me into your arms,   
Even from beyond the breach of death itself.

We are three, made to fit one another’s brokenness  
Made to complete an equation that is at once  
Simple and ineffable.”

Maggie and Alex looked at each other, smiling.  It was perfect already.

“You fill my veins with honey  
With rock and roll  
With physics and geometry and the promises  
Of a life that should be impossible,  
Yet here we are.  
Balanced in our asymmetry.    
Drawing stability from the unbalanced,  
improbable connection  
Of our three souls,  
Three warrior spirits who have lost their gods,  
Or never had them.”

Alex tangled her fingers in Maggie’s and squeezed her hand as they listened, the beautiful truth of Astra’s words stirring her and filling her with more feeling than she thought she had room for.  Maggie felt it too: her eyes were glossy, and looked like Alex’s felt, warm and ready to spill over with emotion.

“We overlap each other like the petals  
Of an infinite rose, blossoming ever inward.  
Planted by fate,  
Grown from a soil that does not sparkle,  
Nourished with tears,  
Cultivated in the light of the yellow sun  
With gentle hands  
With passionate kisses.”

Alex reached up with her other hand and stroked Astra’s hair as she spoke.  

“Lay these flowers open for me, my loves,  
And let our eager fingers unravel all  
The truths that lie therein  
Of the atoms in a crystal, of the veins in a heart  
Of gods and sex and joy and pain  
Of the hundred and one kinds of love  
That can fit into a body  
The hundred and one devotions  
That can fit into three hearts  
Brought together in light.”

They shifted in the bed.  Maggie turned herself around and Alex crawled up to bring herself near so that she could kiss Astra the way she deserved to be kissed after sharing such a shining piece of her soul.  She couldn’t deny as she looked at her, through eyes blurred with emotion, that she saw once again that inner light, that breathtaking clear fire that was Astra’s soul.

Maggie stroked Astra’s cheek, placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to kiss her.  Alex leaned in and kissed her neck and shoulder.

“I promised,” Astra said softly, “that I would share something with you before the weekend was over, and technically, it is still Sunday, and the weekend is not over.”

They laughed quietly and kissed her.  

“It’s beautiful,” Maggie declared, and kissed her again.

“Worth the wait,” Alex agreed.

“I want more,” Maggie whispered.

Astra smiled.  “If our life together continues to grow this way, then I am certain my heart will have more to say.”

“My warrior poet,” Alex sighed, and kissed Astra’s shoulder.

Maggie smiled and looked at Alex.  “I’ll go away again next weekend if it means we get another.”

“Uh-uh.  You’re not going anywhere,” Alex said, and nipped at the end of her nose.

“It is not necessary,” Astra answered.  “It will happen when it happens, I think.  And I know now that I can write in English.”

“You sure fucking can,” Maggie responded.

They roused themselves from bed and washed up and dressed, then ate dinner on the deck in the cool damp evening, underneath the fairy lights.

They shared the exploits of their weekend and the things they saw and discovered.  Maggie showed them pictures of an entire family of lemurs at the zoo, and the fireworks at the Chinese street festival she went to, and dorky selfies with her cousins.  They showed her the seed trays and told her about the crystals and the jigsaw puzzle.  

What they had was beautiful in any combination, but Alex had come out of this weekend feeling both closer to Astra, and more confident in the strength and possibility of their relationship as a whole.  They had each indeed been broken into so many pieces, but their pieces fit each other’s in endless ways, creating a new picture with each new shift in their dynamic.  

But every picture was of the three of them, and their limitless passion, and their bottomless love, and the life that lay before them, lived as one, brought together in light.


End file.
